It's back to school time, which means it's once again backpack time for many kids returning to school and college. Incorrect use of a proper backpack can be just as damaging as using the wrong backpack. Repetitive heavy loading, along with poor ergonomics can lead to dysfunction in your child's body and spine. This dysfunction can lead to back pain, headaches, neck pain, shoulder pain and even things like digestive problems and overall exhaustion.

It's important to remember that chiropractic is not only about pain! Every day, our brain is relying on feedback from motion of the joints throughout our body. Chiropractic adjustments help keep these important joints moving properly so our brain gets good feedback from all the movement our body is doing throughout the day. This helps to “set the stage” for better health overall.

Things that can cause problems to our movement patterns (and in turn, our health) are different types of stresses in our lives: physical stress (like sitting at a desk all day or looking down at your cell phone for long periods of time), emotional stress and chemical stress (like poor food choices). A lot of our patients use regular chiropractic care to help give their body a “reset” to counteract all of these stresses their body gets from day to day.

Check out more our article featured in the "Why Small Businesses Matter" section of HamletHub: Why Small Businesses Matter: Stamford Balance Chiropractic Studio

Is it time to start taking care of your spine? Call our office to set up an initial consultation and visit with Dr. Cristina by calling us at 203-355-2830.

It creates an un-level foundation.
When you are sitting in a chair, you should always focus to have even pressure exerted on your ischial tuberosities (these are the bony bump you have on each side of your buttocks. In yoga class, you may hear these referred to your “sit bones”). When sitting with your legs angled to one side, it creates an un-level foundation for the pelvis, causing and uneven shift of weight to one side of the body. This uneven shift of weight causes the body to try to compensate for these imbalances, which can cause biomechanical problems down the road.

It causes rotation in the lower thoracic spine.
To create the illusion of longer legs, these women angle their legs to the side and downward, causing them to have to rotate their trunk upright to create the illusion of proper upright posture and squaring of their shoulders. Because the lumbar spine (those are your 5 lower spinal segments) does not allow for much rotational movement, the majority of this rotational force will get distributed to your lower thoracic spine, and can cause pre-mature wear and tear in this area. Our psoas muscles (or hip flexors) also attach here, and any disruption in the motion segments can lead to an imbalance in tone in the very important muscles, along with our other postural and support muscles connected to the spine in this area.